Arts & Letters
A selection of recent articles on this topic
Henry Hope Reed, Defender of Decoration
The distinguished architectural historian Henry Hope Reed died May 1 at age ninety-seven. More than any cultural…
Good Council
Trent: What Happened at the Council by John W. O’Malley Harvard, 352 pages, $27.95 Professor John O’Malley…
Feeding
Here she is again, old Worm-beak, Breast the color of a mud lake, Perched on a post…
The Red Beads: At the Maldonado Flea Market, Uruguay
Among the pipes and pulleys, sacks and seeds, there is a necklace made of crimson beads. Great…
Islam’s Origins
In the Shadow of the Sword The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab…
A Nation of Valjeans
Jean Valjean was found guilty: The terms of the penal code were explicit. In our civilization there…
At the Church of the Nativity
Upstanding persons surely find it odd, The way these pilgrims crawl to Bethlehem. How baffling is the…
Japanese Maple in January
All spring she brushed aside my arguments that it was cheaper and would make more sense to…
The Future of Marriage
Last summer, billionaire hedge fund manager and major Republican donor Paul Singer put up $1 million to…
The New Secular Moral Majority
A recent report from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life tells us that…
Instructions for Climbing and Descending
Good foot goes to heaven; bad foot goes to hell. When every step torments and pain is…
Letters
Reason and Revelation There is a deep divide between Jonathan Rauch’s belief that marriage is a malleable…
The Glory and Decline of Bread
Sliced bread (sic) a centimeter thick staling on forty surfaces fit for soggy sandwiches real bread excels…
The Song of the Black Potatoes
“People sink,” wrote Mr. Bishop; “they have no stamina left, they say ‘It is the will of…
Final Reward
St. Peter stands at the Heavenly Gates? enrolling a new admission. “Reporting for duty, sir,” Mike Clancy…
